I'm going to post a few of the "stanzas" from Milosz's "Treatise on Theology." The whole poem bears reading and re-reading, as does the brief volume in which it has been published, Second Space: New Poems
--
22. TREAT WITH UNDERSTANDING
Treat with understanding persons of weak faith.
Myself included. One day I believe, another I disbelieve.
Yet I feel warmth among people at prayer.
Since they belive, they help me to believe
in their existence, these incomprehensible beings.
I remember that they were made to be not much inferior to angels.
Under their ugliness, which is the stigma of their practical preoccupations, they are pure, and when they sing, a vein of ecstasy pulsates in their throats.
Most intensely before a statuue of Holy Mary,
as she appeared to the young girl in Lourdes.
Naturally, I am a skeptic. Yet I sing with them,
thus overcoming the contradiction
between my private religion and the religion of the rite.
--
It is that last line that makes Milosz such a wonderful catholic poet, imho.
No comments:
Post a Comment